Sacrifice
| Sacrifice Section |
| More notes ... |
| Scapex |
Sacrifice looks fantastic, excellent, extraordinary and any other words of praise you can come up with. Using the Messiah engine (which automatically removes polygons on distant objects to keep things flowing smoothly) means it looks like this all the way to the horizon, no fog of war, no scenery pop-up! All rolling hills, gorgous skies and wickedly wierd creatures. If there is one single thing that shows Shiny made this game, it's the creatures. I don't think I'll even try to describe them, suffice to say they're the most odd-looking, unique and creative bunch of freaks ever to walk, crawl or fly through an RTS. They move nice too, I especially like the way the Sac-doctors (guys with a huge syringe which you summon to convert enemy souls) who look like they're moving to some soundtrack of their own all the time.
To support your horde of creatures in battle, you have access to an assortment of spells with which to cause varying amounts of destruction. Lightning bolts and fireballs are at the bottom of the scale, volcanoes and tornadoes are at the top. All require mana, which fortunately is readily available from mana fountains around the map. Build a manalith on a fountain to ensure nobody else benefits from being close to it. For supplies when out of range of a fountain you need a battery of Manahoars, wierd little things with no arms, huge flopping ears and a crystal buried in their head and who channel mana to you from your manaliths. The one other resource you need is souls, which you, unsurprisingly, get by killing creatures. Then summon a Sac-doctor to bring the soul to your altar for converson and presto! Another soul to add to your army!
Altars, yes ... Altars are huge Stonehenge-like constructions of which each wizard has one. As long as you have your altar you may resurrect when you're killed. Die when someone is performing a desecration ritual at your altar though, and it's all over. Count on that happening a few times while you get used to the game and style of play. Sacrifice's gameplay promotes getting moving fast and hitting your enemy before he/she/it can hit you, and an early advantage often means victory. A bit like Z in that way, but perhaps not as definite (which is a good thing). Battles are often short and chaotic, and you won't be sure just what you started doing right between the initial losses and the later wins. Well, some things you'll know you do better of course. Like grouping creatures properly so you don't forget half of them in some backwater where they can do you no good ... Think there's still a lot of creature control improvement I could do, so I won't say too much about it. That goes for multiplayer too, haven't tried it or skirmishes yet since I still have lots of single player missions to try and want to get to cool spells that way.
The story is nice by the way, even if there isn't really that much of it. Most of the in-between-mission talk is arguments between the five gods and them briefly explaining the missions they want you to carry out. This is complemented by some talk while the missions loads and in-game sequences into a nice mixture. It may not sound like too much when you think about it, but it does feel good. Also, it feels like there's a lot more to learn by re-playing the game and choosing other gods' missions, and replayability is a great feature in any game.
Sacrifice is special. Special is good. Very good. From the terrain (these are worlds you'd like to live in if it wasn't for the fighting) to the creatures to the gameplay to the voice acting (british familar! Oh yes!), you get the feeling that this game is one of a kind (and it's the rest of them that are wrong not to stand out).
